…Gratitude, workplace happiness and job performance
Gratitude. Thankfulness. Appreciation. These are concepts we are all familiar with as humans. It is expected of us to occasionally exhibit these when the time is right or when the occasion calls for them. Therefore, whether as individuals or as a group, we do these things because they are nice to do. They are expected of those of us who are supposed to be civilised. In the world of business, however, one cannot help but wonder if we are really tapping into the power of these qualities.
Organisations tend to show some form of gratitude and appreciation to their customers. We see gifts being sent to customers on special occasions. I see birthday cakes flying left, right and centre from our favourite Telco. I see gift vouchers being sent to customers, especially during the festive season. As someone who has directed corporate affairs and marketing for a bank in this country, I have sent my fair share of gifts to customers. In showing gratitude, even the internal customer is not left out. Many organisations might have a program or event of appreciation for their employees. End of year staff appreciation events are commonplace.
Largely, we can say that gratitude is a common practice in the business world. But to build a whole business strategy around gratitude and appreciation is something that is not so common. But maybe, just maybe, businesses should start looking at gratitude and appreciation as a potential business strategy with very good prospects. Maybe, a strategy built around gratitude could be a competitive advantage and a game changer for businesses.
For starters, there is a need to differentiate between appreciation and gratitude and according to experts, there is a subtle difference between the two. Appreciation is usually about acknowledging the good around us. It is about seeing the good in the events and people we experience in life. Gratitude, on the other hand, is the recognition that the good we see around us is not really because of our own efforts. Gratitude is an acknowledgement that the goodness in our lives comes from an outside source—be it divine or human.
And there is good reason to be thankful. The feeling of gratitude has been shown to have immense benefits for the grateful person. For one, it has been found that individuals who live in gratitude generally experience positive emotions. This then translates into a positive well-being. Gratitude has also been found to reduce the stress levels of employees leading to fewer cases of ill health. It has been proven that when employees operate with a sense of gratitude, they are less likely to suffer from burnout on the job.
Studies after studies have shown that there are fewer health complaints among people who are generally grateful. Gratitude has been shown to reduce depression among children, adolescents, and adults. In other words, gratitude turns out to be good medicine, much like laughter. A spirit of gratitude pervading through an organisation can therefore reduce medical bills in the organisation, effectively leading to a positive dent on the bottom-line of the organisation.
A publication in the August 2019 edition of the Journal of Positive Psychology made a bold assertion that gratitude was important for the health of our hearts. It was claimed in that study that individuals who kept a journal in which they regularly wrote about things they are grateful for experienced a significant drop in diastolic blood pressure. This refers to the measure of the pressure in one’s arteries when the heart rests between beats. The study was titled “Gratitude and Health: An Updated Review”.
It has also been found that when people are in a grateful mood, they feel good about the future. They look to the future with optimism, believing that they can achieve their future goals. Individuals who practise gratitude are less anxious about the future. There is also proof that gratefulness also leads to increased job satisfaction. People who are grateful for the job they have and other good things in their life tend to be more satisfied on the job. Job satisfaction is such an important metric for any organisation. Every business manager and owner knows that when employees are satisfied, they tend to feel better on the job—and when they feel better about themselves, they do an overall good job.
There are even studies that suggest that when employees are grateful, they also tend to feel very positive about their co-workers. This leads to less workplace friction and confrontation. The camaraderie that built is then translated into a great work atmosphere. There is a strengthening of relationships within the workplace. Staff get to know each other more and as they do so, they become more willing to do more for each other. We all know the benefits to customers when employees feel great about the place they work and about the people they work with.
There is even a very simple connection between gratefulness and performance on the job. The more grateful an individual feels, the happier the one becomes—and the happier the one becomes, the better the one performs on the job. This is especially true for those whose duties involve dealing with customers on a regular basis.
Happiness helps front line employees create the right environment within which to serve customers. The grumpy front line employee is a danger to the reputation and fortunes of the business. An ungrateful employee would want to be anywhere else but on the job. Such a person would definitely not be able to give off his or her best. Customers will notice this and this might eventually affect the business.
Gratitude has also been known to make individuals savour positive experiences even more. Savouring is actually an attempt to extend an experience the individual is having. It is not wanting a particular experience to come to an end. The truth is that gratitude causes people to fully immerse themselves in the experiences they have. For instance, a customer-serving employee who is appreciated and therefore feels grateful might spend a lot more time with the particular customer who initiated that feeling of gratitude. The conversations with that customer might be much more engaging. This will, inevitably, lead to a closer relationship with that customer.
An interesting study published in the April 2022 edition of the Frontiers in Psychology journal revealed that there was indeed a correlation between gratitude and workplace happiness. Carried out among more than 720 university teachers in India, the study found that “gratitude is both a sufficient and necessary condition for workplace happiness.” The rather long title of that publication was “Does Gratitude Ensure Workplace Happiness among University Teachers? Examining the Role of Social and Psychological Capital and Spiritual Climate.”
Another of the interesting studies on the relationship between gratitude and prosocial behaviours was captured in the June 2010 edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The rather-lengthy title of that report was “A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior.”
One of the major findings of this particular study was that when employees were put in a mood of gratitude, they were not only sociable towards the one who expressed gratitude to them, they went ahead and acted beneficially towards others as well. This is a very important finding. It effectively means that when an air of gratitude blows through a workplace, everyone benefits. When a customer-facing employee feels good because the one has been shown some gratitude, the one is nice to not only customers but also the one’s own colleagues. Closely related to this finding is the finding that when customers appreciate the efforts of customer service employees, those employees tend to be more willing to help those particular customers again and again. Gratitude therefore sets into motion a virtuous cycle.
Another finding to come out of this particular study was that when employees are appreciated by their superiors, they tend to put in more effort. This is a very important finding. It is effectively saying that gratitude is directly related to the productivity of the individual. It is therefore entirely possible that a workplace that is lagging behind in productivity might actually be as a result of staff not feeling very grateful. Maybe, these employees are not being appreciated and therefore they are not experiencing the kind of gratitude that leads to increased productivity. Maybe, just maybe, what that team needs are not more training programs. Maybe what those employees need are a lot more Thank Yous, a lot more Well Dones and a lot more We appreciate Yous.
Practically, there is a good reason why gratitude affects employees positively. When a customer-facing employees serves a customer, the employee might not be too sure if that service has been well received or not. It happens to all us. There is uncertainty as to the quality of service that has been offered. This happens to the very best of us. One can never be totally sure of the quality of the service the one is putting out there, especially as the one will be dealing with different customers at different times. Even the same customer might be a “different person” on a different day.
Another reason which makes the performance at the front line quite tricky is that the customer’s experience can be quite subjective. A front line professional could do the very best the one is capable of doing. However, the quality of the experience is fully in the hands of the customer. Service is what the customer-handling professional does but experience is what the customer takes away. The best efforts of the employee might fall short of the expectations of the customer.
In all of this, a show of appreciation from the customer is one sure of letting the employee know that the service has been well received. A Thank you becomes a proof of a good job done. A show of gratitude is a proof that the experience has been well worth the service. This is why gratitude has such a positive effect on the customer-facing professional. It is a seal of approval.
